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It was my version of Robin that the fans voted to kill, which is a perverse point of pride on my part (but I'm also the guy who wrote Robin as a street gang kid who initially tried to steal the tires off the Batmobile, which was picked up on by the cartoon show). - Excerpt from an interview with Max Allan Collins. Collins isn't strictly correct; the second Robin of the cartoon series never stole tires. Shampoo, groceries, and a policeman's pastry goods, sure, but never tires. But it's impossible to ignore the similarities between Tim Drake of The New Batman Adventures and the Robin two of the comics, Jason Todd.
Tim Drake is the son of Stephen "Shifty" Drake. In the comics continuity, Jason Todd's father is Willis Todd. Both Shifty and Willis are small-time crooks who end up getting on Two-Face's bad side, and both are presumed dead. By contrast, the Tim Drake of the comics (who took up the role of Robin after Jason's death, making himself the third Boy Wonder in that universe), while now an orphan, had both his father, Jack, and his mother, Janet, alive at the time when he decided to become a vigilante. Also, unlike the two Robin twos, the Tim of the comics came from a materially affluent home life.
One of the commonalities the Tim of the cartoon does share with his comics namesake is the watching from afar - some might call it stalking - of Batman and Robin. Both Tims collect newspaper articles about Gotham's costumed crime fighters, and follow them at night sometimes. While the Tim of the comics concentrates much of his fascination on Dick, the first Robin, the Tim of the cartoon seems to have a more generalised love for the Bats and what they represent in the city. This is significant to note, because it means that Tim wanted to be Robin before he met Batman. As will be demonstrated later in this comparison, Tim has his own reasons to put on the Robin suit, and does so without Batman's blessing or permission. Jason, on the other hand, was given the role by Batman.
Both of the above images are a re-working of the image of the Robin suit in a case, which originally appeared in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns as a symbol of Jason's death. The same iconography made its way into the main continuity of the Batman books shortly after, following Jason's murder in the A Death in the Family storyline. Later, the image began to appear in flashbacks, allowing characters to look at and comment on Robin One's (Dick Grayson's) suit in a way which foreshadowed Jason's death. Also noteworthy is the fact that Tim refers to this as 'the real Robin suit', despite its dissimilarities to the costume worn by Dick in the cartoon. The red top + red pants + black accents is just as close to Jason's first outfit (as seen in the panels from 408) as it is to Dick's Robin suit.
The storyline in this episode of the cartoon runs like this: Tim Drake is a boy left to fend for himself following his father's disappearance. He lives on his own in a run-down and dirty apartment until Two-Face's men come looking for his father and take Tim hostage. Two-Face decides to kill Tim, but the boy is saved when Batman arrives on the scene. During the fight with Two-Face and his henchmen, Batman is wounded, and it's up to Tim to get him to safety. Batman's vehicles are programmed to automatically drive home on command. Tim goes exploring in the Batcave and looks up in awe at the original Robin costume. Eventually he makes his way upstairs into Wayne Manor, and works out Batman's secret identity. Batgirl drags him back downstairs, where it's revealed that Tim stole a money clip full of bills while exploring. This can be read as a tie to the film Dick Tracy, which cartoon co-producer Bruce Timm has mentioned in interviews as being a comic-book film which he enjoyed. The character who steals a money clip in that movie, Junior, has often been cited as the template upon which Jason Todd was based.
Batman discovers that Tim's father has almost certainly been killed by Two-Face. Two-Face has by this point set into motion a plan to destroy all of Gotham, and Batman and Batgirl go to stop him. Tim pleads to be allowed to go along too, pointing out that he has "a stake in this too", but Batman forbids it.
Batman and Batgirl meet with Two-Face and his henchmen and mayhem and violence result. During the fight, a small figure in a red suit leaps into the fray - Tim has gone against Batman's orders and donned the Robin suit. In the Batman comics there have been two different Jason Todd origin stories. While the similarities outlined above and later in this essay illustrate that the majority of Tim Drake's history is drawn from the second and more well-known of these, it should be noted that there are also similarities between Sins of the Father and the first Jason origin story. In this first version of events, Jason discovers that Bruce Wayne is Batman by snooping around the Manor, just as Tim does. Both boys (and also the Tim of the comics continuity) steal a costume from the Batcave and sneak out after Batman. In Comics-Tim's case, his motivation is an unwavering belief that Batman needs a Robin, whereas both the Tim of the cartoon and the first Jason begin by viewing the whole situation as a bit of fun (Tim uses a batarang to tease and bother a police officer, Jason wants to see what he looks like dressed up). By the time they jump into the fray, however, they are acting out of a need to avenge murdered parents, and a desire to help Batman.
Tim, untrained as he is, ends up as a hostage.
The heroes triumph in the end, and Tim must face a less-than amused Batman. The scene cuts to Tim and Bruce engaged in training, as Bruce makes it clear that Tim must give absolute dedication to his training and to the role of Robin. The episode ends, much to Tim's delight, with the return of Dick Grayson.
As an extra bonus, some comparisons from the episode Never Fear: While there aren't enough matching scenes within the two pieces to do a shot-for-shot, Detective Comics 571 features a plot wherein Scarecrow dopes Batman up with a drug which removes fear. On that particular occasion, Jason plays Boy Hostage for most of the issue. In Detective Comics 540, however, Robin Two's role is more active, as he manages to go up against the Scarecrow on his own while Batman is indisposed. He does the same in Never Fear.
In the first version of Jason's origin, his parents were murdered by being thrown into the crocodile enclosure at the Gotham Zoo. Jason, who doesn't suffer hallucinations from the Scarecrow's fear-frequencies, has nightmares of being attacked in the same manner as his parents. When affected by the Scarecrow, Batman imagines that he sees Jason lying prone among crodociles and, in an effort to save the boy, jumps in among them. Meanwhile, Jason is fighting the Scarecrow, and manages to temporarily disable the transmitter of the fear-frequency. Batman, realising what's going on, escapes the croc pit. In Never Fear, Bruce tries to find out what's causing people to lose their fears and inhibitions but his cover is blown and he is knocked out. When he awakens, he is on the bank of a body of water, beside a wire fence. Fear removed by the Scarecrow's drug, Bruce fights and deafeats the crocodile.
It's impossible to do any kind of examination of Jason's character without at least touching on the death of Felipe Garzonas, a criminal who fell to his death. It has never been established in the comics whether Jason was unable to prevent what happened, if he let it happen, or if he pushed Felipe over the edge. Detective Comics #790, during which Jason's memory is to some extent a catalyst for the characters' actions, has Batman push a man out a window - the man survives because he is caught mid-air by Batgirl. The image of a falling victim is a potent one to use in relation to Robin Two, no matter what the context. In Never Fear, Batman is not himself - he's under the influence of Scarecrow's toxin. When he pushes a man out a window, it's Tim who comes to the rescue in the nick of time and saves the man from falling. In a metatextual way, it's an act of redemption for Robin Two.
In Detective Comics #571, when Bruce has had his usual fears removed by the Scarecrow, he overcomes the desire to act carelessly by imagining the worst thing he possibly can. At the end of the story, Jason asks what that was. The panel above tells the rest of the story. The closing image of Never Fear has the three characters in much the same pose (it's hard to see in this still, but Batman is dragging the Scarecrow), with Batman explaining to Robin that 'a little fear is a good thing'. |
